It's been a while since I've done a proper jump shot. Figured I'd get another one in before the end of my 365 Days project. This one is day 362, and it also happens to be the first jump shot in the new apartment. And this only took me 4 takes to do. :)
After a few days of holiday craziness and a rather fun and drunken Brews and Views, it was nice to just chill at home for a day. Mia and I got a very slow start to our Friday and ended up ditching all of our original Friday plans. Instead we spent the day chilling at home, watching TV, editing photos, and working on our respective 365 Days shots. The rest of the weekend is looking to be a rather relaxed one as well. I have a strong feeling that we're not going to be very productive during the last few days of our vacation time (we're both off through the new year).
Brittney and Kate were kind enough to model in their wedding gowns for a fun little photo shoot this past weekend. Someone also decided to bring pink flasks as props. Let's just say much hilarity ensued during the afternoon. More images from this shoot on the way later this week (after I finish processing things and after all the crazy-busy Christmas stuff).
I’ve moved apartments. Same complex but a bigger place. The room in the above photo is to become the studio space. That nasty purple wall is changing colors later this week. I’m tired of moving and unpacking, but I’m so excited about this new chapter in my life. More to come later.
Kimberley and Kirt said they wanted to do some jump shots as part of their session. So, we went up to the roof of Mia’s apartment building, set up some lights, and did some jumps in the dark. It was awesome.
Here’s Kimberley and Kirt posing for a relatively atypical couple portrait session. They didn’t want anything that looked like portrait studio or fashion work, so we just goofed off in Mia’s apartment building until we got tired of shooting.
Here are a couple more shots from the first photo shoot with my new Nikon D300.
The location is Mia's apartment building. The model is Tara. I wasn't really planning on doing the fashion editorial/film noir thing going into the shoot, but that's what I ended up with. I must admit that I do like the looks I got that day.
After dinking around casually with my Nikon D300 for nearly two weeks, I finally got around to doing an actual photo shoot with it this past weekend. I must say that it really is leaps and bounds better than my D70 and D70s both in terms of operation and image quality. For the $1800 I paid for, it had better be!
Using the camera is a dream. All the controls are quick and easy to access. Auto-focus is fast. The viewfinder is big and bright and has all the shooting info I need to see. The 3" LCD is absolutely wonderful for chimping. And the camera just feels well-balanced in my hands.
Image-quality-wise, it's awesome. Color, exposure, sharpness -- the all rock. Mostly, though, the amount of shadow detail and dynamic range is simply amazing. In the shot above, the model and city were actually mostly in silhouette. Even though she was lit with three speedlights, the sun was still too much to overpower. Despite that, I was still able to pull out a ton of shadow detail in Lightroom and get pretty darn close to the shot I was originally envisioning in my head. Sure, I could've spent more time tweaking light setup to get it right in-camera, but it was freezing out there, and we really needed to move to the indoor shots. Basically, I was lazy and hoped that I could salvage the shot in post. And I managed to do it.
In short, I'm loving this camera. Worth every penny.
Holy crap! It’s December already. Not only is year almost over, but Seattle got it’s first snow of the season, and I’m on my final month of 365 Days. I can’t believe I’m almost done with the project. The first time I tried 365 Days, I only made it about 40 days before giving up due to time constraints. Now, I’ve finished 336 days without missing a single one and am on track to hit day 365 on New Year’s Eve. It’s so exciting!
A lot of people have asked me what I plan to do after I complete 365 Days with the most common question being whether or not I will simply continue shooting one self-portrait each day. Honestly, I haven’t quite decided yet. I might continue shooting. I might take a break then start up again. I might jump onto the 52 Weeks project. Or I might focus on something not related to self-portraits. I really have no idea. We’ll see what happens after the New Year.
